


In the hands of an angry God

by Kagutsuchi



Series: Damned if You Do [2]
Category: Preacher (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, and it was Tulip who never hesitated to seek him out knowing full well what had happened to him, for both of them honestly, it was Tulip who found Cassidy's charred remains in the Annville Congregational churchyard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-11 03:18:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7874095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kagutsuchi/pseuds/Kagutsuchi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cassidy burns and Tulip sifts through the ashes. He's a predator as much as any other man, only more so. It's a question of degree, and Tulip graduated from the school of hard knocks with several that qualify her for the job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sunrise

 

 _The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked. His wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire. He is of purer eyes than to bear you in his sight; you are ten thousand times as abominable in his eyes as the most hateful, venomous serpent is in ours._

\- Jonathan Edwards

* * *

 

Jesse had left him there, body bent in motionless prayer to a man who wouldn’t acknowledge that he’d made him in a way - made a willing believer in something, at least for a little while. Just another Roman in a silent temple, kneeling before a god who never pressed his ear to the ground for fear of what he might hear. 

Tulip had spent hours poring over photos of the dead curled in the ruins of Pompeii - her eighth-grade history textbook had spent most of its short life propped open to those dog-eared pages, their fiery ends rendered serene by a thick encasing of plaster of paris, contortions frozen in place forever and jaws slightly agape in one long silent scream. Ironically, that textbook had met its end on her front stoop the only day in Annville it had ever rained for more than twenty minutes while Tulip fished her uncle out of the drunk tank. Warped beyond recognition by the time she managed to haul his ass home. Death by water was probably worse than death by fire, or so Jesse always told her when they played _Would you rather_?

Could’ve used some rain earlier. This body was warped too - twisted and blistered down to the bone, pink where the flesh had bent back to reveal muscle and sinew and a creeping yellow ooze.

Death by fire scared her most because it had always seemed all too near in the flats of West Texas, packed into miles of sunbleached sod baked hard as stone. “There’s no law west of Dodge, and no God west of the Pecos.” Jesse had told her that too, quoting John Wayne’s _Chisum_ out of earshot of his father. Might as well abandon all hope, ye who enter in. No matter how far she ran from this town, Tulip O’Hare knew that the desert would keep her bones.

But Cassidy wasn’t Texan. Hell, he wasn’t even American, so he owed the desert nothing.

“Cassidy.” Her voice came out a whisper but had seemed very loud in her throat, suddenly gone dry. She swallowed and gagged and reached for him with a measured, careful grasp to touch the nape of his neck with the tips of her fingers. He recoiled and a rattling moan issued from somewhere deep within his ribcage, as if the whole of his insides had been hollowed out. He was alive, and she had to act fast.

Tulip always kept a large, soft blanket in her trunk - a habit from a youth spent wrapping up her uncle and carting him home. You never knew when you or someone you knew would need something warm around their shoulders. She tucked it around his prostrate form and pressed against the nape of his neck again, as gently as she could. He bit back a groan. “Lean on me and we’ll head for my car. I’m taking you home.”

* * *

 

Cassidy couldn’t open his eyes. He knew they were at Walter’s place by the smell - stale beer and Flavor Station chicken n’ biscuits. She’d led him to a dark, cool room and he could hear her pulling all the sheets off the bed so they wouldn’t stick to what was left of his skin. He leaned into her the way she’d leaned into him at Toadvine a few nights back and if he had functional vocal chords he’d have chuckled at how they could never do things proper. Either she was inebriated or he was covered in fourth-degree burns.

She lifted the blanket from his shoulders and lowered him onto the mattress and he couldn’t help attempting a joke. “We’ve gotta stop meetin’ like this, luv,” he managed to croak.

“I told you Jesse was a self-righteous, God-fearin sonuvabitch! And you went right out there and fuckin’ cremated yourself for his ungrateful ass! Why would you do that? No - don’t answer that. Don’t push yourself. Just drink up.” She was holding her wrist to his lips; he could tell by the faint, narrow pulse and the metallic smell of the blood that pooled, delicate and tapering, down the length of her arm.

“No,” he rasped, pushing her wrist from his mouth. Words weren’t coming easily but he had to make her understand. “I might be tempted...to take too much...”

“C’mon, Cassidy, you’ve at least gotta be able to see. Just enough that you can open your eyes. Eyelid skin ain’t very complicated so it’ll probably heal first, right?” She probably was right. She was right about most things. And he wanted to believe she was right about him.

“Alright, lassie, if you insist...but it’ll hurt. It’s not like...in the movies...with the dainty little pinpricks and all.”

“Figured as much. Just don’t get carried away. I ain’t ready to join the legions of the undead just yet.” There was a smile in her voice he wished he could see.

“You’re saving my life...for real this time....I can’t tell yeh how grateful I am.”

“Yeah, well, you don’t have to. Let’s just get you on your feet again.”

He got down on his hands and knees and he bit her, as gently as he could. It was a new sensation for both of them. A sharp little intake of breath was the only indication she gave of the pain, and he heard her fingers wrap tight around the edge of the mattress, and then it was over. He sucked quietly at the wound and the silence stretched out between them.

He’d never bitten anyone who asked for it. There hadn’t been many, because most never knew what he was, but there had been a few over the years. Friend of his found out he had terminal cancer and asked to be turned, a girl had pleaded with him to let her live out her dark fantasies with him for a hundred centuries and he’d jokingly told her he could hardly imagine even one more night with her, which effectively ended their relationship. When it came down to it, this wasn’t something he’d wish on anyone.

Never had someone offered him the flesh of their body just for his own benefit. And he should’ve said no, he really should, because in a way this was extremely intimate - more intimate than that kiss he stole, more intimate even than making love. Not for her, maybe - no, it didn’t surprise him that she was the sort to bleed for a stranger if she felt like they deserved it. But for him, this was the first time he’d fed on a bite without force or malice. He had never bled anyone without tearing into their neck and bleeding them dry, and he knew that if he survived this, he’d look back on this moment with no small amount of yearning. Because how could he ever replicate such a feeling without her?

He pulled back from her arm and wiped the blood from his chin, blinking slowly. She looked at him, dark eyes reflecting a sun he couldn’t see beneath knitted brows. The golden light of the afternoon filtered through the bedroom curtains and shone behind the crown of dark curls on her head.

“You were right. I can see just fine now.”


	2. Fearful Symmetry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 contains a retelling of Cassidy's backstory in the comics in the form of a flashback.
> 
> Tulip really did procure sunscreen, blood bags, etc. for Cassidy - you can see it in some of the BTS/promotional pics for El Valero (episode 8).

_You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince, and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else that you did not go to hell the last night; that you were suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up._ \- Jonathan Edwards

* * *

It wasn’t so hard to look at him in the long shadows of her mother’s old bedroom and she was grateful for it - not so much because his burns were unsightly, but because she couldn’t even begin to imagine the pain of it, seared right down to the bone past fat, tendon, and muscle alike. How he had survived at all, much less mustered the strength to move or even stand upright, was beyond her.

The bite had been quick but painful and she’d done her best not to let on just how painful. He couldn’t help what he was. He could only help how he dealt with things, given his lot in life. She’d stared resolutely at the ugly yellow curtains on the back wall while he’d lapped at the wound and after he opened his eyes, he looked up at her with all the wide-eyed melancholy of a dog that’s jumped onto the counter and eaten the roast while his master was out. She raised a quizzical brow and managed a half-smile.

“Well, it can’t be much harder on me than your typical blood drive. Do I need to eat a big chocolate chip cookie now or somethin?” He chuckled, and she winced at how guttural it sounded. “But forget that, what do you need next? How much blood?”

“I don’t rightly know.”

“Well, as you probably remember, the nearest hospital doesn’t keep a close eye on their blood bank. I’ll be in and out of there in a jiffy - you just stay here and rest. My uncle’s in the next room and I already called in for him so he won’t be working tomorrow, but he won’t be doing anything other than laying on the couch for a good long while. He never gets visitors, so you’ll be safe here. Just...keep the curtains drawn, alright? Don’t hurt yourself on my account...please. I don’t know you well enough to give you reasons to live, but I know Jesse Custer’s goddamn ego ain’t reason enough to die. Promise me.” She lowered herself into a crouch and looked him in the eye.

Cassidy nodded and returned her gaze. “I promise.”

“Alright then. I’ll be back soon.” She closed the door behind her.

“Tulip,” he called through the door. “Might be best if yeh locked it. Don’t want anyone finding little ol me in here on accident.” So she did.

* * *

Ten blood bags seemed a reasonable number in her opinion. Not so many that she felt guilty about it, and not so few that she didn’t think they’d do the job. On the way back from the hospital, she’d stopped by the pharmacy (where she thankfully wasn’t recognized as last week’s opiate thief) and bought whatever she thought might help.

“Got a few bags of every type, ‘cause I wasn’t sure which was your favorite.” He was huddled in her blanket in the corner and she lay them out in a row at his feet, the labels clearly visible.

He snorted. “I feel like I’m in a spa.”

“Speakin’ a which, I’ve got aloe vera, an oatmeal bath treatment, and sunscreen. For later, you know, once you’ve healed up a bit.”

He looked up at her with searching eyes and upturned brows. “Tulip,” he murmured in a voice that was barely audible but still characteristic of the way he always said her name - “Toolip.” He’d let it linger in his mouth, as if he liked the feel of it. Wanted to keep it for himself. And if the day’s events had taught her anything, Cassidy’s loyalty to Jesse really was as overindulgent as it seemed, so his feelings for her were likely as passionate as he made them out to be. For whatever good that would do them.

“Don’t look at me like that. You’re gonna have skin to slather with that sunscreen again, eventually.” She wasn’t too sure, herself, but she always did put her bets on the out-of-towner. Cassidy was about as out-of-town as you ever got. She extended a hand to him, offering him a bag of Type B. “I’ve opened all of them a smidge, so you don’t have to do it yourself since your fingers aren’t up for much. Just make sure you don’t squeeze too hard when you pick em up or they’ll spray everywhere.”

He cradled the bag in his blackened palms and she turned to go, speaking over her shoulder as she went. “I’m headed to Toadvine to play a few hands and make a little dough. There’s still a coupla good ole boys in this town who won’t expect a hustle from the likes-a me. Uncle’s cell phone’s on the dresser and my number’s the only one in it. Call it if you need me and I’ll be back lickety-split - Toadvine ain’t far from here.”

Tulip grabbed her keys from the bedside table and headed out the door, locking it behind her. All the years she’d spent looking after deadbeats and working girls in this jerkwater town, and no one had ever looked at her like that. She didn’t like the way his dark eyes followed her around the room as if every moment doing otherwise was wasted, and every moment fixed on her was his last.

* * *

Bloodlust was more a burning than a hunger, a slow acidic scalding in the lining of the gut that seared its way outward until you were blind with it, blind to all but heat and movement and the faint frantic thrumming of anything with a pulse slower and weaker than you, which was everything. There was always a danger of burning, from the inside out as much as the outside in.

He’d squeezed all the bags dry with trembling hands, not bothering to lick up the blood he’d slopped onto the floor because he knew there was nothing for it. It’s not that it wasn’t enough, it’s that it’d gone stale. Not that it had ever mattered to him before, but nothing but fresh blood was going to do the trick this time. He’d hardly healed at all, and in the meantime, conscious thought was near impossible. It’d be all too easy to drop any pretense of self-control, and it was only the thought of Tulip with her smooth brown neck in tatters, her skin between his teeth before either of them could blink the minute she unlocked that door, that kept him from letting go altogether. That and the bog witch.

* * *

She’d snaked her liver-spotted arms around his shoulders and sunk her teeth into his neck before Cassidy could so much as protest. Billy shot her square in the eye before she could drink deep enough to kill him outright and her body dropped straight as a stone down the slope of the riverbank and into the shallows of the bog below, nails dug deep enough into his shoulder to tear into the kelly green of his Irish Volunteer Army uniform and the exposed flesh below.

“Proinsias!” he heard Billy call from above and nothing more as the base of his skull connected with a river rock.

He woke once that he could remember in the interim, a sharp throbbing in his head and a searing pain spreading across his face. Gingerly, he pushed himself upright, catching sight of himself on the water’s surface. In what was left of the ebbing light of day, he could make out nothing that he recognized - just a pair of eyes staring out of a fleshless red mass of blood and nerves. He tried to scream but could do little more than wheeze with the mangled remains of his throat. Cassidy whipped around where he stood looking for the hag or his brother, but both were gone without a trace. Further inland, the plaintive bleat of a lost sheep hock-deep in a muddy pit nearly scared him out of what was left of his skin and he was seized with a sudden inexplicable hunger. Acting on instincts his oxygen-starved brain couldn’t begin to process, he ran full-pelt towards the unfortunate animal and went for the jugular, gnawing through fur and sinew to the veins beneath with a clumsy jerk of his jaw to the right. The bleating stopped. Blood gushed from the wound and he lapped at the severed arteries in a mindless frenzy, flinching at every pump of the dying creature’s heart. Sated, he pulled back from the gaping maw he’d opened in its throat and choked in surprise as he felt the press of flesh against his windpipe and the scabby, clotted pulp of his face. Cassidy stumbled backwards and into the muck and again, there was enough light left that he could make out his face in the muddy water below, somehow whole and intact, his pain gone. Had he imagined it all? He’d never once hallucinated before. But there were stories of soldiers haunted by war imagining horrible things even away from the battlefield. Perhaps this was just that.

His hands were shaking, and looking at them, he remembered the sheep and how its heart had pumped fountains of blood through the gash he’d torn in its throat. He wet his lip and tasted it there, coppery and warm. And its body lay there in the rushes, real enough. So that, at least, was true. Was this what soldiers did when the heat of battle went to their heads? He’d never heard of such a thing. Besides, he hadn’t seen real battle. He’d never fired a bullet. Billy had made sure of that, bless him. But why had he left him there? He’d seen him through all this only to leave him at the bottom of a bog with some withered old crone. It wasn’t Billy’s way, but he was sure there was a reason.

Cassidy shook his head in irritation, waving off the cloud of gnats hovering close to his brow. He’d never heard gnats so loud. Everything had seemed over-loud and bright since he woke up, but he’d assumed it was to do with coming to his senses. And the stink of the bog was pervasive; it was all he could do not to gag.

There was nothing for it. He’d have to make it back to Dublin on his own. And wouldn’t Billy be proud to see him come safely home, on his own as a man ought? His uniform was so encrusted with grime that no one would be able to make out the green underneath and he could pass as just another dirty Irishman so long as he kept his head down and his wits about him.

Unable to sleep through the noise and stink of the bog, Cassidy walked through the night, keeping to the trees off the side of the main road. He saw no one and was feeling quite at ease when the sun began to rise.

It was just an itching around the collar at first, and then a sharp prickling all over that quickly perforated the outer layer of his skin and burned like nothing he’d ever felt, as if he’d burst into flame. Which in fact, he had.

Screaming and flailing he fell down the hill towards the bog and the coolness of the mud was like a balm to his burning body, but when he surfaced, his skin hissed and bubbled in the sunlight. He dove beneath the water again to put a stop to it, and every time he surfaced was the same. Carefully, he spread the mud of the riverbed on his head and face and arms till they were all completely covered and surfaced partway, so that only his head and upper torso were exposed. The water itself was nearly opaque with all the silt and sand he’d stirred up and kept the sunlight from reaching the rest of him. Cassidy huddled in the shade at the base of a willow nearby, shivering beneath the heat of the burns on his head and hands, so warm compared to the breezy air of the bog and the layers of muck he’d packed onto them. The rest of him was cold as a corpse and had been for some time. He slid in between the roots of the willow furthest from the sun, and recoiled from his reflection in the riverbed below - the flesh of his face that was visible puckered and pink with burns, his hair plastered thick and muddy against his skull in matted clumps beneath a dripping layer of bog water. He cut a figure the likes of which he’d seen only once before, crumpled into his shoulder with its teeth deep in his throat.

She’d made him hers, he realized. And he could never go home.

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 1 contained a brief reference to the incident at Toadvine in my fic Twilight Royal Purple where Tulip gets pizza for all the girls and gets drunk thinking about Jesse. It's Cassidy who has to drive her home then.
> 
> There are several pieces to this fic so far and I have the whole thing planned out, I'm just not sure how many chapters it will take to get there. These two have so many layers and dimensions as individuals and together that I'm taking my sweet time exploring them all and don't see that ending any time soon.


End file.
